Mining in Africa has contributed to significant economic growth in some countries. Indeed, these sectors have held the promise of raising incomes and living standards for citizens of resource-rich countries the world over. Numerous African countries today increasingly finance their development through resource extraction. For a continent endowed with a seemingly endless bounty of resources, the allure of rapid economic growth and development funded solely by proceeds from resource extraction have led many African governments to ignore the pitfalls of these industries and become resource-dependent nations. Consequently, the lack of effective strategies, legal frameworks and policies to negotiate, regulate and enforce extraction contracts in transparent and accountable ways have left many African countries unable to take full advantage of their natural wealth. Moreover, the failure of some to insist upon environmentally and socially sustainable resource extraction has spawned a host of associated problems: environmental degradation, volatile economic growth, limited job creation, violent conflicts, endemic poverty, health problems and corruption. These adverse outcomes, however, are not inevitable. Indeed, some African countries have managed to beat the resource curse, using the proceeds from extractive industries to diversify their economies and invest in their human, social, physical and financial capital. This paper thus seeks to assess the successes and failures of African governments to utilize their resources sustainably. It draws upon the experiences of Nigeria, Algeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa to document the strides Africa has made toward sustainable development. Using the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a backdrop, the paper further seeks to assess the challenges many African governments still face and the effective strategies and legal frameworks that may be adopted with regard to the exploitation and extraction of Africa’s mineral resources.
{"title":"Toward a Sustainable Future: Assessing the Impact of Extractive Industries on Sustainable Development in Africa","authors":"D. Kiogora","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3054734","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3054734","url":null,"abstract":"Mining in Africa has contributed to significant economic growth in some countries. Indeed, these sectors have held the promise of raising incomes and living standards for citizens of resource-rich countries the world over. Numerous African countries today increasingly finance their development through resource extraction. For a continent endowed with a seemingly endless bounty of resources, the allure of rapid economic growth and development funded solely by proceeds from resource extraction have led many African governments to ignore the pitfalls of these industries and become resource-dependent nations. Consequently, the lack of effective strategies, legal frameworks and policies to negotiate, regulate and enforce extraction contracts in transparent and accountable ways have left many African countries unable to take full advantage of their natural wealth. Moreover, the failure of some to insist upon environmentally and socially sustainable resource extraction has spawned a host of associated problems: environmental degradation, volatile economic growth, limited job creation, violent conflicts, endemic poverty, health problems and corruption. These adverse outcomes, however, are not inevitable. Indeed, some African countries have managed to beat the resource curse, using the proceeds from extractive industries to diversify their economies and invest in their human, social, physical and financial capital. This paper thus seeks to assess the successes and failures of African governments to utilize their resources sustainably. It draws upon the experiences of Nigeria, Algeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa to document the strides Africa has made toward sustainable development. Using the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a backdrop, the paper further seeks to assess the challenges many African governments still face and the effective strategies and legal frameworks that may be adopted with regard to the exploitation and extraction of Africa’s mineral resources.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133613592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper proposes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the future perspectives of climate change. First, it analyzes the possibilities of using the media as an information source for anticipating trends and challenges in this area through exploring the topics that have been actively discussed in the news in the recent 5 years. Second, qualitative and quantitative approaches are combined in this study in order to identify trends of different categories: social, technological, economic, environmental, political and values/culture. It allows integrating the results of trends monitoring obtained from qualitative and quantitative sources and create a complex map of trends. Qualitative approach is based on the literature review and consultations with the experts, while quantitative analysis includes collecting the news from Factiva database and processing it in Vantage Point software using bibliometric analysis, natural language processing, statistical analysis and principal component analysis. The results shown that 58% of trends were validated by the news and its contribution to the final trends list accounts for 25% on average, which means that the media can be considered as a useful additional data source for validating and updating trends. The results of this multidisciplinary study can be of interest to researchers, economists, business representatives and policy makers that are involved in the climate change related activities
{"title":"Climate Change and Our Future: Anticipating Trends and Challenges Using Media Data","authors":"Nadezhda Mikova","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2845888","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2845888","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the future perspectives of climate change. First, it analyzes the possibilities of using the media as an information source for anticipating trends and challenges in this area through exploring the topics that have been actively discussed in the news in the recent 5 years. Second, qualitative and quantitative approaches are combined in this study in order to identify trends of different categories: social, technological, economic, environmental, political and values/culture. It allows integrating the results of trends monitoring obtained from qualitative and quantitative sources and create a complex map of trends. Qualitative approach is based on the literature review and consultations with the experts, while quantitative analysis includes collecting the news from Factiva database and processing it in Vantage Point software using bibliometric analysis, natural language processing, statistical analysis and principal component analysis. The results shown that 58% of trends were validated by the news and its contribution to the final trends list accounts for 25% on average, which means that the media can be considered as a useful additional data source for validating and updating trends. The results of this multidisciplinary study can be of interest to researchers, economists, business representatives and policy makers that are involved in the climate change related activities","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132268087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mining at the backdrop of traditional institutional regime with its rooted socio-economic and political disposition draws a unique attention in Meghalaya. The ‘Rat-hole’ mining in Meghalaya is unique to its institutional framework where the policy of resource management (coal in this context) is characterised by the common resource sharing and social participation. But overtime the common resources were managed by the few which distorted the property right subject and its natural social claim. This also raised the issue of sustainable use of the so called common property resource and resultant environmental concern. The imposition of ‘NGT’ ban since April 2014 which environmental watchdog view as a milestone, and the unusual dynamics of social acceptance of such institutional policy for both present and future resource use, including the environmental concern, is raising a serious debate in Meghalaya. Therefore, the institutional policy debate of privately managed common property resource and ‘NGT’ ban with its consequent socio-economic and political issues need to be analyzed, which is expected to have serious implications both at present and future.The present study is an attempt to throw some light on institutional policy regime practiced in common property resource management in Meghalaya and the impact of ‘NGT’ ban on various socio-economic and political parameters arising out of its institutional arrangements.
{"title":"Institutional Policy and Its Role in Sustainable Resource Management and Development: A Critical Analysis of the ‘NGT’ Ban on ‘Rat-Hole’ Mining in Meghalaya, India","authors":"Dr. Krishna Chauhan, Iasuklang Kharumnuid","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2819025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2819025","url":null,"abstract":"Mining at the backdrop of traditional institutional regime with its rooted socio-economic and political disposition draws a unique attention in Meghalaya. The ‘Rat-hole’ mining in Meghalaya is unique to its institutional framework where the policy of resource management (coal in this context) is characterised by the common resource sharing and social participation. But overtime the common resources were managed by the few which distorted the property right subject and its natural social claim. This also raised the issue of sustainable use of the so called common property resource and resultant environmental concern. The imposition of ‘NGT’ ban since April 2014 which environmental watchdog view as a milestone, and the unusual dynamics of social acceptance of such institutional policy for both present and future resource use, including the environmental concern, is raising a serious debate in Meghalaya. Therefore, the institutional policy debate of privately managed common property resource and ‘NGT’ ban with its consequent socio-economic and political issues need to be analyzed, which is expected to have serious implications both at present and future.The present study is an attempt to throw some light on institutional policy regime practiced in common property resource management in Meghalaya and the impact of ‘NGT’ ban on various socio-economic and political parameters arising out of its institutional arrangements.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126508102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many developed countries have the declared objective of supporting forest sustainability around the globe, but the world’s most important forests are, in fact, outside their jurisdictions. Actions to protect these forests are therefore constrained by the legal problem of extraterritoriality. To legally act outside their borders, developed countries have supported voluntary certificates on production practices and price-based instruments, but, unfortunately, neither instrument reached beyond niche market shares, administration and compliance costs were high, the environmental gains variable, and the two types of instruments work alongside each other without much synergies.In this paper, we use a Law and Economics methodology to develop a mechanism design that integrates forestry certificates with price-based instruments, in a way that exploits synergies, and provides dynamic incentives for sustainable use of forests while keeping down the costs of compliance and administration. It is a mechanism that satisfies legal extraterritoriality constraints while nevertheless allowing countries to act outside their borders. The mechanism consists of a tax imposed by a timber-importing country on a default assumption regarding the sustainability of the timber, combined with a tax discount that is provided on proof that the sustainability was higher than assumed. The proof is established by showing a sustainability certificate to the customs authority when the timber is imported.This Feebate mechanism reduces a range of standard problems in the literatures on certification and taxation of overseas forestry, such as the problems of threshold costs, free-riding and consumer recognition in markets with competing sustainability certificates, and the problem to compute efficient Pigouvian tax rates in a sector marked by data unavailability. We show that a combination of price-based instruments with certificates can lead to greater sustainability of timber production than each of the instruments alone, without infringing the sovereignty of nations in the South in an extraterritorial manner.
{"title":"Augmenting Forest Sustainability Certificates with Fiscal Instruments","authors":"D. Heine, M. Faure, Chih-Ching Lan","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2617815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2617815","url":null,"abstract":"Many developed countries have the declared objective of supporting forest sustainability around the globe, but the world’s most important forests are, in fact, outside their jurisdictions. Actions to protect these forests are therefore constrained by the legal problem of extraterritoriality. To legally act outside their borders, developed countries have supported voluntary certificates on production practices and price-based instruments, but, unfortunately, neither instrument reached beyond niche market shares, administration and compliance costs were high, the environmental gains variable, and the two types of instruments work alongside each other without much synergies.In this paper, we use a Law and Economics methodology to develop a mechanism design that integrates forestry certificates with price-based instruments, in a way that exploits synergies, and provides dynamic incentives for sustainable use of forests while keeping down the costs of compliance and administration. It is a mechanism that satisfies legal extraterritoriality constraints while nevertheless allowing countries to act outside their borders. The mechanism consists of a tax imposed by a timber-importing country on a default assumption regarding the sustainability of the timber, combined with a tax discount that is provided on proof that the sustainability was higher than assumed. The proof is established by showing a sustainability certificate to the customs authority when the timber is imported.This Feebate mechanism reduces a range of standard problems in the literatures on certification and taxation of overseas forestry, such as the problems of threshold costs, free-riding and consumer recognition in markets with competing sustainability certificates, and the problem to compute efficient Pigouvian tax rates in a sector marked by data unavailability. We show that a combination of price-based instruments with certificates can lead to greater sustainability of timber production than each of the instruments alone, without infringing the sovereignty of nations in the South in an extraterritorial manner.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126261886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Elena Verdolini, Laura Diaz Anadon, E. Baker, V. Bosetti, L. Reis
Expert elicitation is a process for eliciting subjective probability distributions from experts about items of interest to decision makers. These methods have been increasingly applied in the energy domain to collect information on the future cost and performance of specific energy technologies and the associated uncertainty. This article reviews the existing expert elicitations on energy technologies with three main objectives: (1) to provide insights on expert elicitation methods and how they compare/complement other approaches to inform public energy decision making; (2) to review all recent elicitation exercises about future technology costs; and (3) to discuss the main results from these expert elicitations, in terms of implied rates of cost reduction and the role of R&D investments in shaping these reductions, and compare it with insights from backward looking approaches. We argue that the emergence of data on future energy costs through expert elicitations provides the opportunity for more transparent and robust analyses incorporating technical uncertainty to assess energy and climate change mitigation policies.
{"title":"The Future Prospects of Energy Technologies: Insights from Expert Elicitations","authors":"Elena Verdolini, Laura Diaz Anadon, E. Baker, V. Bosetti, L. Reis","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2815367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2815367","url":null,"abstract":"Expert elicitation is a process for eliciting subjective probability distributions from experts about items of interest to decision makers. These methods have been increasingly applied in the energy domain to collect information on the future cost and performance of specific energy technologies and the associated uncertainty. This article reviews the existing expert elicitations on energy technologies with three main objectives: (1) to provide insights on expert elicitation methods and how they compare/complement other approaches to inform public energy decision making; (2) to review all recent elicitation exercises about future technology costs; and (3) to discuss the main results from these expert elicitations, in terms of implied rates of cost reduction and the role of R&D investments in shaping these reductions, and compare it with insights from backward looking approaches. We argue that the emergence of data on future energy costs through expert elicitations provides the opportunity for more transparent and robust analyses incorporating technical uncertainty to assess energy and climate change mitigation policies.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123608266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Building upon the work of Pindyck (2012), I show how different assumptions regarding the utility and damage functions can support the immediate adoption of a stringent abatement policy. I employ an additive rather than a multiplicative form for the utility function and a damage function that accounts for extreme climate change. Using the distribution for temperature change and the economic impact provided by Pindyck (2012), based on information from the IPCC (2007) and recent IAMs, I estimate a simple measure of "willingness to pay". My specifications lead to significantly higher estimations for the WTP than in Pindyck and in some extreme cases to a value close to 1. Although one could not strongly argue which is the right specification for the model, the analysis suggests that seemingly small differences in modelling can have very different policy implications.
{"title":"Uncertainty, Extreme Outcomes and Climate Change: A Critique","authors":"M. Arvaniti","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2801039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2801039","url":null,"abstract":"Building upon the work of Pindyck (2012), I show how different assumptions regarding the utility and damage functions can support the immediate adoption of a stringent abatement policy. I employ an additive rather than a multiplicative form for the utility function and a damage function that accounts for extreme climate change. Using the distribution for temperature change and the economic impact provided by Pindyck (2012), based on information from the IPCC (2007) and recent IAMs, I estimate a simple measure of \"willingness to pay\". My specifications lead to significantly higher estimations for the WTP than in Pindyck and in some extreme cases to a value close to 1. Although one could not strongly argue which is the right specification for the model, the analysis suggests that seemingly small differences in modelling can have very different policy implications.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129252262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-06-20DOI: 10.17485/IJST/2016/V9I21/95094
Y. Patil, Sneha Kumari
Background/Objectives: India is an agro-based country where seed is the heartof agriculture. Agood quality seed makes a good crop resulting in high yield and better quality for better economic growth. The objective of the study is to explore the seed trends and critically assess the trends with the changing climatic conditions of Indian agriculture. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The paper has undergone an exhaustive literature to find out the changing policies of agriculture seeds.The paper clearly shows that Seed can make agriculture sustainable. With time National Seeds Corporation have come up with several policies which has made promotion of agriculture convenient. The paper is based on secondary data obtained from ministry of agriculture and national seeds corporation. The study shows the trends in seed development since 1740 till 2014. Findings: The paper undergoes to concern issues of several research papers for making seeds sustainable in the era of climate change. The paper shows how the seeds policies have tried to adopt the seeds to climate change. Since 1740 till 2014 India's climate has shown a drastic change. The paper shows how the seeds policies have tried to adopt the seeds to climate change.These seeds policies have not only tried to improve the productivity of plants but also have tried to move the seeds towards the path of being sustainable. Applications/Improvements: This has been an issue of concern in modern era in terms of economic, environmental and social perspective leading to sustainability.
{"title":"Trends of Seeds in the Era of Climate Change – An Issue of Concern towards Sustainability","authors":"Y. Patil, Sneha Kumari","doi":"10.17485/IJST/2016/V9I21/95094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17485/IJST/2016/V9I21/95094","url":null,"abstract":"Background/Objectives: India is an agro-based country where seed is the heartof agriculture. Agood quality seed makes a good crop resulting in high yield and better quality for better economic growth. The objective of the study is to explore the seed trends and critically assess the trends with the changing climatic conditions of Indian agriculture. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The paper has undergone an exhaustive literature to find out the changing policies of agriculture seeds.The paper clearly shows that Seed can make agriculture sustainable. With time National Seeds Corporation have come up with several policies which has made promotion of agriculture convenient. The paper is based on secondary data obtained from ministry of agriculture and national seeds corporation. The study shows the trends in seed development since 1740 till 2014. Findings: The paper undergoes to concern issues of several research papers for making seeds sustainable in the era of climate change. The paper shows how the seeds policies have tried to adopt the seeds to climate change. Since 1740 till 2014 India's climate has shown a drastic change. The paper shows how the seeds policies have tried to adopt the seeds to climate change.These seeds policies have not only tried to improve the productivity of plants but also have tried to move the seeds towards the path of being sustainable. Applications/Improvements: This has been an issue of concern in modern era in terms of economic, environmental and social perspective leading to sustainability.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"111 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123465927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Chilean economy presents an excellent case study through which to examine questions of the policy desirability of globally integrated financial markets. In this paper we study whether increased lending by the Chilean government bank created positive economic effects for Chilean firms after the global financial crisis of 2008. We also study whether foreign exposures of Chilean bank liabilities altered the lending patterns of those banks during this period. We find positive sales effects for Chilean firms who took a government loan in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis. We also find that international financial integration does not result in negative domestic consequences transmitted through the channel of foreign exposure after an external liquidity crisis. A striking feature of our paper is the fact that, knowing there is only one government bank in Chile from which to borrow, we are able to link bank lending data directly with the firm survey data. We can thus with confidence recommend using foreign financial markets as a tool for growth for developing countries, particularly when combined with prudent counter-cyclical government lending policies.
{"title":"The Effect of the Global Banking Crisis on Credit Markets in Chile","authors":"C. Plambeck, Jillian Zirnhelt","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3520223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3520223","url":null,"abstract":"The Chilean economy presents an excellent case study through which to examine questions of the policy desirability of globally integrated financial markets. In this paper we study whether increased lending by the Chilean government bank created positive economic effects for Chilean firms after the global financial crisis of 2008. We also study whether foreign exposures of Chilean bank liabilities altered the lending patterns of those banks during this period. We find positive sales effects for Chilean firms who took a government loan in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis. We also find that international financial integration does not result in negative domestic consequences transmitted through the channel of foreign exposure after an external liquidity crisis. A striking feature of our paper is the fact that, knowing there is only one government bank in Chile from which to borrow, we are able to link bank lending data directly with the firm survey data. We can thus with confidence recommend using foreign financial markets as a tool for growth for developing countries, particularly when combined with prudent counter-cyclical government lending policies.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131381046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The process of entrepreneurship is often categorized as opportunity or necessity driven. While the former represents a profitable opportunity as perceived by a potential entrepreneur, the latter in the contrary is associated with entrepreneurship as a last resort, because of any impossibility of finding other sources of income. The distinction between opportunity and necessity based entrepreneurs could also be interpreted as the separation between self-employed and high, growth entrepreneurship. For the past five or four decades, many researchers have attempted to come out with factors that have an impact on entrepreneurship development. However, few researches have been conducted with the focus on Africa. The current paper aims at filling the gap in this regard by providing factors that have an impact on entrepreneurship development from an African perspective. A thorough literature review is conducted with the objective of bringing out the recent research on entrepreneurship development with the focus on Africa.
{"title":"The Review of the Literature on Factors Impacting Sustainable African Entrepreneurship","authors":"Professor Alain Ndedi","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2790566","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2790566","url":null,"abstract":"The process of entrepreneurship is often categorized as opportunity or necessity driven. While the former represents a profitable opportunity as perceived by a potential entrepreneur, the latter in the contrary is associated with entrepreneurship as a last resort, because of any impossibility of finding other sources of income. The distinction between opportunity and necessity based entrepreneurs could also be interpreted as the separation between self-employed and high, growth entrepreneurship. For the past five or four decades, many researchers have attempted to come out with factors that have an impact on entrepreneurship development. However, few researches have been conducted with the focus on Africa. The current paper aims at filling the gap in this regard by providing factors that have an impact on entrepreneurship development from an African perspective. A thorough literature review is conducted with the objective of bringing out the recent research on entrepreneurship development with the focus on Africa.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"2015 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114564568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
About 10% of primary school students in developing countries have poor vision, but very few of them wear glasses. Almost no research examines the impact of poor vision on school performance, and simple OLS estimates could be biased because studying harder may adversely affects one's vision. This paper presents results from a randomized trial in Western China that offered free eyeglasses to rural primary school students. Our preferred estimates, which exclude township pairs for which students in the control township were mistakenly provided eyeglasses, indicate that wearing eyeglasses for one academic year increased the average test scores of students with poor vision by 0.16 to 0.22 standard deviations, equivalent to 0.3 to 0.5 additional years of schooling. These estimates are averages across the two counties where the intervention was conducted. We also find that the benefits are greater for under-performing students. A simple cost-benefit analysis suggests very high economic returns to wearing eyeglasses, raising the question of why such investments are not made by most families. We find that girls are more likely to refuse free eyeglasses, and that parental lack of awareness of vision problems, mothers' education, and economic factors (expenditures per capita and price) significantly affect whether children wear eyeglasses in the absence of the intervention.
{"title":"A Better Vision for Development: Eyeglasses and Academic Performance in Rural Primary Schools in China","authors":"P. Glewwe, A. Park, Meng Zhao","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2797542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2797542","url":null,"abstract":"About 10% of primary school students in developing countries have poor vision, but very few of them wear glasses. Almost no research examines the impact of poor vision on school performance, and simple OLS estimates could be biased because studying harder may adversely affects one's vision. This paper presents results from a randomized trial in Western China that offered free eyeglasses to rural primary school students. Our preferred estimates, which exclude township pairs for which students in the control township were mistakenly provided eyeglasses, indicate that wearing eyeglasses for one academic year increased the average test scores of students with poor vision by 0.16 to 0.22 standard deviations, equivalent to 0.3 to 0.5 additional years of schooling. These estimates are averages across the two counties where the intervention was conducted. We also find that the benefits are greater for under-performing students. A simple cost-benefit analysis suggests very high economic returns to wearing eyeglasses, raising the question of why such investments are not made by most families. We find that girls are more likely to refuse free eyeglasses, and that parental lack of awareness of vision problems, mothers' education, and economic factors (expenditures per capita and price) significantly affect whether children wear eyeglasses in the absence of the intervention.","PeriodicalId":296234,"journal":{"name":"SRPN: Sustainable Development (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131025231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：